I was on the road a lot yesterday, and spent some time listening to NPR. Their coverage of this trial is pretty weird. Like the Hinderaker article says, they have nothing but confusion to report. It’s like they can’t say anything about it that’s not an apology for how very “hard” it is to try a case like this or for a jury to decide it. Much of what they said was an implication that the process is just too difficult for the poor women on the jury to figure out, and so you can’t blame them for returning a wrong verdict. How is that not sexist as hell? Those women should be praised for making a difficult decision that was in line with the evidence. They truly did their job, and they did it without agonizing for months over it.

Another thing about NPR: When did they make the rule that you have to be a muslim female with a chinese surname to report for them? I’m friggin’ serious! I heard from half a dozen reporters, and they were all really young, (mostly clueless, it seemed), women of generally islamic/hispanic/asian names, except for maybe two black men. I guess they’re trying to be the anti-Fox news. Blondes need not apply. Just seems excessive, you know? I get the desire for diversity, but this is a little “extreme” and neither does it make them “more representative.”

I know what you mean about NPR! All of the radios in my house and my car are tuned to public radio, for two reasons — one, I love classical music and public radio is the only place that plays it; and two, I hate commercials with a passion. The result is that I hear several newscasts a day from NPR, and your description of it is pretty darn accurate.

Thanks, and I know what you mean about commercials. They literally (not abusing the word here) shorten my life and make me stupider and angrier every time I hear one. I have to turn the radio off when the ads come on, which is often. As a consequence, I don’t listen much.

I keep hearing “Stand your Ground” and how that has to be eliminated. Hey! I’m a Floridian and have to say I LOVE the Stand Your Ground law. However, Zimmerman’s battle wasn’t about that, it was about the fact that he had to do something when he was on the ground being beaten. THAT’s why he was not guilty.

And…How can it be about race when Zimmerman is Hispanic?

Just in case there are some people who still don’t know the definition of Cracker: Anyone born in Florida–no matter their race, color or creed–is a cracker. I really dislike it when people are racist against Floridians. 🙂

I haven’t confirmed this yet, but it appears there were no trespassing signs at the entrance of the gated community. Don’t tell me “trespassing” is too big of a word for a strapping young man in high school to read.

All good points, and exactly right that this case was a poor one to be considered “racially-motivated.” So, is that true? That “cracker” is a more general Florida term that’s not really racial? Didn’t know that. I’ve been to lots of parts of Florida but never lived there, and I’ve never really heard a good, solid explanation. Welcome, by the way! 🙂

Yep. If you go into the woods and talk to the old-timers (over 80) born here they’ll tell you that a Cracker is anyone born in Florida. I heard it growing up and still hear it from the wise and ancient older than me.

Good to know! Where I’m from, many of the old-timers are black (and often lean conservative), and they will tell you that the way to get past race is to live like it doesn’t matter, not to keep hanging onto anger – even if the anger is justified. That’s gotta be hard, I know, because there’s real suffering out there. But I really believe that. If you’re gonna teach anybody to stop being a racist, you gotta do it by example. There’s really no other way. It’s got to start somewhere. I think this whole Zimm trial set us back in race-relations, but not because of the verdict – because of the way it was played by the politicians (Barack principally) and the media. Like Pinko said, we’re more divided than ever.

One of my early blogs talked about the fact that people from Scandinavia (before they got religion) used to be sold as slaves to the middle east.

Jews were slaves to Egyptians and if you look far enough back in history, I doubt there’s a single group of people who don’t have ancestors who have been slaves, owned slaves or both at one time or another.

Right, and if you read any old stuff at all, you know that slavery (especially indenture) was not even regarded with tremendous stigma because it was common and (considered) necessary to allow people of limited means to reestablish themselves in new countries. Right here in America, only about 250 years ago, it was common even for Anglo immigrants to indenture themselves due to debts. Obviously, people also recognize that it was common in the Biblical times and everywhere in between, among all races.

I get what you’re saying regarding cracker being a term used locally in Florida. But that is not a universal meaning. Those involved in the GZ trial and the protests following the verdict meant it to be strictly derogatory. Keep in mind, the moslems don’t bother with the word “kike”. They consider the term “Jew” to be derogatory.

Kike was a derogatory term for Jewish people in Florida. When I was married to a Jewish man, I heard the word Goyum a lot (I’m not Jewish). Unfortunately, the word Cracker has been bastardized. Pity that every culture seems to have a word for people they don’t like.

As you say sometimes those terms no inherent negative roots. I guess cracker is one. But Hollywood and racist minorities have managed to redefine the word. Where I grew up (mostly Jewish Long Island Five Towns) goyum, or goy was mildly derogatory. Gentile was the polite term. Despite this, Christmas and related school plays and decorations did not raise the community’s collective hackles. Some groups seem to defy such tagging. I knew a guy at college whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower. “Pilgrim” or “Puritan” didn’t seem to bother him.

Awesome rant by Mr. Pinko today:
“I feel like we’re living in a world filled with simpleton children that need to have their selfish needs placated until the next “event”. The Zimmerman case is just one big distraction from Obama’s epic failure to bring America together, make us strong and thrive. We’re more divided than ever.” Read more here.

All I know is that he was one of the crew over at Oleg Atbashian’s place (People’s Cube) who followed BigFurHat over to the IOTW startup. He doesn’t write much these days, and he was on complete hiatus for a while, but he’s got a good eye and good pen.